The Adventures of Lazarus Gray (29 page)

"Hang on, Chief!" Eun
bellowed. "We’re gonna get you down from there!"

Lazarus said nothing,
trusting that his aide would be as good as his word. He cast a
downward glance at Muggsy’s dead body. He detested killing any
living thing but The Axeman was barely human at this point. In the
end, Muggsy lived for murder and could never be rehabilitated.
Thus, Lazarus had done both Muggsy and society a tremendous favor
by ending his existence.

It was a hard thing, being
a self-appointed judge and jury. But Gray was prepared to take on
the responsibility – especially given that he lived in a city where
the men and women appointed to do such things could no longer be
trusted.

A hard rain began to
fall.

Epilogue

Morgan was back at his desk
within three days’ time, much to the chagrin of Samantha, who
fussed over him like she was a mama bird and he was her baby chick.
Though it embarrassed him, he didn’t put up much of a
complaint.

Eun was mostly out of the
office during this time, as he was helping Edward move into a new
apartment.

With his three aides thus
engaged, Lazarus Gray busied himself by executing Monique’s Slasher
and scouring the girl’s personal belongings until he found that she
was in possession of several controlled substances. Thus armed, he
was able to see that she was entered into the legal system
appropriately. Dinkins was a far easier case – the man was wanted
on a litany of crimes both great and small back in Louisiana. Gray
personally transferred him over to the law enforcement agents who
came from the Bayou to collect him.

When the cleanup from the
Axeman case had been settled, Lazarus returned to his third floor
apartment in the Assistance Unlimited headquarters. It was there
that he spread out a series of papers he’d been accumulating as of
late. There were photographs of men and women from around the
world, as well as a detailed tracking of their movements. He was
the only man alive who had been at the center of The Illuminati and
had survived breaking ties with it. It was only a matter of time
before they came for him again and he intended to be
ready.

In fact, Lazarus intended
to strike first.

THE END

An Adventure of Lazarus
Gray

Written by Barry
Reese

Chapter I

Cry Vengeance!

The rain fell steadily over
Sovereign City, drenching man and beast. It had stormed for six
days in a row, prompting some to joke that it was well past time to
start work on an ark. The figure that strode through the puddles,
his body hidden beneath a wide-brimmed fedora and a thick jacket
cinched at the waist, cared nothing for the bitter cold or the
freezing rain. He was known as The God of Hate to those brave
enough to follow him and he ruled over an island nation with an
iron fist. He was The Claw and he had come to Sovereign City on
dark business.

His inhuman features were
quickly turned away from any pedestrian who happened to wander too
close. Though he was of the general shape and height of a man, his
ears were pointed, his mouth was a gaping maw filled with
razor-sharp teeth and his fingers ended in the claws from which he
took his name.

The Claw came to a stop
before a large structure. His eyes ran across the lettering on the
brick sign that rested on a grassy knoll in front of the building:
Doc Daye’s Home for Forgotten Children. The orphanage was home to
nearly six-dozen little tykes, as well as the women who cared for
them. It was one of the city’s most beloved institutions and Daye
himself was frequently sighted at the facility.

At this hour of night, all
the children were nestled tight in their warm beds, dreaming of
potential new families. Unfortunately, those dreams were never
going to come true.

The Claw stared at the
building for a few seconds before glancing up at the full moon that
hung bloated in the sky. His power waxed and waned in conjunction
with the phases of the moon and tonight he was going to be near his
strongest. He knew that he should be expending this energy in
pursuit of Lazarus Gray but an old, bloody debt was calling to
him.

"Tempus, my old friend, I
only wish that you were sleeping alongside these innocents, so that
their fate could be your own. The vengeance I owe your father can
only be satisfied by your death." The Claw’s voice sounded oddly
high-pitched for such a frightening entity. He raised both arms,
exposing his sharpened nails to the light. He whispered dark words
under his breath, speaking in a tongue long forgotten by civilized
man. The storm clouds overhead seemed to thicken and swell, bolts
of lightning tearing from their midst.

In reaction to The Claw’s
commands, the lightning strikes grew ever closer to the orphanage
until with stunning ferocity no less than three dozen bursts of
electrical power honed in on the building, striking with all the
force of a thousand pounds of TNT. The building exploded in a
fireball, some of the bricks flying with such force that they
knocked out windows on buildings across the street. The smell of
burning flesh filled the air as dozens of young boys and girls were
ripped from the world at far too early an age.

The Claw turned away from
the scene, a bubble of laughter emanating from deep in his throat.
This visit to Sovereign was meant to be one of business, for he was
being richly paid for his work. But that didn’t mean that he
couldn’t enjoy himself along the way….

***

Paris, France

Morgan Watts tried to
ignore the nagging pain on his left side but the condition was so
persistent that he finally put a hand on the affected area and
grunted in annoyance. Over the past few months, he’d had the
misfortune to suffer one injury after another. As a result, his
body now carried with it more aches and pains than most normal men
could have withstood.

That was part of the reason
why he’d volunteered for this mission. He wanted to get out of
Sovereign in the hopes of breaking his run of bad luck. When
Lazarus had announced that he wanted one of the team to travel to
Paris and have a little "talk" with a member of the Illuminati that
lived there, he quickly snatched up the opportunity.

Morgan sat in a small café,
bundled up against the wintry chill. A cup of coffee sat on the
table before him but it had remained untouched since the waiter had
brought it to him. Morgan’s attention was fixed on the hotel across
the street and he sat up straight when his target finally
emerged.

Joseph "Jack" Conrad was an
American by birth but he’d moved to Europe at the age of six and
had spent the last twenty years of his life here in Paris. He
served on the Board of Directors for one of the most prominent
museums in France and was regarded as one of the most eligible
bachelors on the continent. Thin but well-defined, Conrad had
white-blond hair that came to a widow’s peak, dark eyes and a
somewhat distant persona. He always dressed to the nines and was
rarely seen with out a cigarette balanced between the fingers of
his right hand. Indeed, as Morgan watched, Conrad stopped on the
hotel steps, pausing long enough to shake a cigarette out from a
case and then light it. He took several long drags on it, exhaled
slowly, and then began heading down the street at a leisurely pace.
Morgan exited the café, dropping a few coins on the table as a
tip.

Morgan followed, staying
far enough behind that Conrad wouldn’t notice that he was being
tailed. From what Morgan had been told, Conrad had joined The
Illuminati in his late teens, having been invited to join mainly
because of his family’s money. Whereas many members of the
organization possessed some measure of skill in the areas of the
occult, Conrad was an exception. The son of a wealthy banker,
Conrad helped provide needed capital and connections but was
otherwise kept out of the loop when it came to the full extent of
their supernatural affairs.

But he still knew enough to
be useful.

Morgan recognized the area
they were entering, having meticulously studied maps of the city.
He ducked down an alleyway, confident that he knew where he could
cut off Conrad’s progress. Indeed, he found himself waiting at a
point, just ahead of the other man within moments and as Conrad
passed, he reached out and grabbed him, yanking him off the street.
He kept one hand over Conrad’s mouth while the other held the
barrel of a gun against the man’s forehead.

"Don’t move.
Understand?"

Conrad’s eyes were wide and
frightened. He nodded quickly, wetting his lips when Morgan
released his hold on him. "I have money," he said, starting to
reach into his coat pocket.

"Keep your hands where I
can see them." Morgan cocked the gun and Conrad quickly raised his
hands, showing the palms to Morgan. "I don’t want your money. I
want information."

"What do you mean?" Conrad
seemed both relieved and guarded. "If you’re looking to pull some
sort of art heist, you’ll find that there’s only so much I can help
you with. The museum’s inner workings aren’t known to
me."

"Do I look like an art
thief?" Morgan reached into his coat and pulled out a photograph of
Walther Lunt. The German had one side of his face ruined by an acid
attack years before and the assault had left him with a glint of
madness in his eye. The photo showed that quite clearly. "You know
this man?"

Conrad hesitated, wetting
his lips once more. "Yes."

"I understand you’re both
part of the same group. Am I right?"

"We’re in a gentleman’s
club together, yes."

"Nice name for it. Your
father is in banking and I bet that Lunt and some of the others use
you to help keep their money hidden. Am I on the right
track?"

Conrad said nothing for a
moment and when he did speak, his voice had dropped an octave.
"You’re playing a dangerous game, my friend. You don’t want to mess
with these people. They’ll hurt you in ways that you can’t even
imagine."

Morgan narrowed his eyes,
his grip on the pistol never wavering. He was pretty sure that one
reason why Lazarus agreed to let him go on this mission was because
of his past. Morgan had once run with the toughest thugs in
Sovereign. He’d done lots of bad things and on a few occasions,
he’d had to kill to save his own skin. Unlike Samantha or Eun – and
maybe even Lazarus – Morgan was quite capable of pulling the
trigger if need be. "I’ll take that risk. Now answer the question:
do Lunt and the others use your father’s bank?"

"I’m pretty sure that you
already know that they do. That’s why you’re here, isn’t
it?"

"Smart boy." Morgan reached
out and grabbed Conrad by the arm, yanking him close. He shoved the
gun hard into the younger man’s ribs, keeping it out of sight as he
walked Conrad back out onto the city streets.

"Where are we
going?"

"To the bank. It’s after
hours but you can get us in, can’t you?"

Conrad’s jaw worked in
helpless frustration. "And then what?’

"You’re going to give me
addresses, phone numbers and anything else I can think of for those
people Lunt works with."

"And when you’re done, do
you think I’m not going to warn them?" Conrad’s eyes widened as the
words left his mouth and he visibly realized that he should have
kept his lips shut. "Oh good lord, you’re going to kill me, aren’t
you?"

Morgan just smiled coldly,
letting Conrad fill in the details. He actually had no desire to
commit murder, even though he was capable of it. He’d brought along
a small drug cocktail that Lazarus had perfected. It would wipe
Conrad’s memory of the last 24 hours and leave him a very confused
man. "I won’t shoot you unless you make me. That’s a
promise."

Conrad stared into Morgan’s
eyes, not sure if he believed the older man’s words. In the end, he
knew that he had no choice: even a faint hope of survival was
better than none. "I’ll get you the information you need… but I
think you’re making an awful mistake. Lunt alone is a lunatic. If
you go after the other members of the cabal, too, you’re a
guaranteed dead man."

"I’ll roll the dice on that
one. Now let’s go." Morgan gestured for Conrad to lead the way and
the two of went off in pursuit of the information that would,
hopefully, lead to a critical strike against The
Illuminati.

***

"... city continues to
mourn the loss of 57 innocent lives in last night’s terrible fire
at Doc Daye’s Home for Forgotten Children. Sovereign Fire Chief
Gabriel Sanders says that the tragedy is like nothing he’s ever
seen before…."

Lazarus Gray turned off the
radio, well aware of the somber mood in the room. With him in the
meeting area of Assistance Unlimited’s headquarters were Samantha
Grace and Eun Jiwon. Both of them stood in silent contemplation,
eyes downcast.

"It’s so awful," Samantha
said at last, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. The
daughter of socialite parents, Samantha had never been one of the
city’s ‘forgotten children,’ but her kind heart allowed her to
easily empathize with those who had perished. It was horrible
enough to be alone in the world, with no family to speak of… but to
have that life cut so cruelly short was almost too much to
bear.